1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of automotive applications. In particular, the invention relates to a system for synchronizing records of duty status (RODS) information of a vehicle with a stationary unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are many vehicle applications that record data in an electronic on board recorder, EOBR, for example, and synchronize the data from the EOBR with a stationary unit, for example a Backend Server. The data synchronization process requires transmission of data between the vehicle and the stationary unit. In general, an EOBR device may be referred to as a mobile unit.
An EOBR device installed in a vehicle may, in particular, be used by a driver to record duty status activities, which may be referred to as records of duty status, RODS. Such an EOBR device may be configured for usage by a multitude of different operators, i.e., drivers. The EOBR may store, for each driver who used this EOBR, the operator-specific RODS data history for a specified first period of time, for example a few days, such as 10 to 15 days. The data stored in the EOBR may be required to be available for roadside inspection.
A driver RODS is a time ordered list of duty status records. Each of these duty status records may include at least one or more of the following information: record identifier (unique identifier that is issued for the duty status record when it is recorded), start time (timestamp when the duty status starts), end time (timestamp when the duty status ends), duty status value (possible values are: D—driving, ON—on-duty not driving, SB—time spent in sleeper berth, OFF—off-duty) name of the nearest populated place (city) where the duty status has been started, state name of the place where the duty status has been started, vehicle position (latitude/longitude) when the duty status starts, total vehicle odometer when the duty status has been started, annotation text containing remarks added by the driver (optional).
The stationary unit, i.e., the backend server, collects RODS data from EOBR devices from a multitude of vehicles and stores the RODS data in a database for a specified second period of time, which is longer than the first period of time, for example a few months, particularly 6 months. The driver RODS database from the stationary unit can be accessed by a managing operator. The managing operator may generate hours of service, HOS, reports based on the driver RODS.
In general, the mobile unit and the stationary unit synchronize the RODS data cyclically. Such a synchronization process requires transmission of data from the mobile unit to the stationary unit and vice versa.